1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a test method and, in particular, to a multithread auto test method for computer hardware tests.
2. Related Art
Normally, computer hardware in a Windows environment is tested using the serial test method. As shown in FIG. 1A, hardware test items are performed one after another. Although this method has the advantage of no interference between each individual tests, it does have the following drawbacks.
(1) The test efficiency is low. A test is not started until its previous test is done. Therefore, it takes a longer time to finish all the test items of the computer. Of course, the yield efficiency of the assembly thread is seriously affected.
(2) It has potential test loopholes. The serial test method does not consider the situation of testing several hardware devices at a time.
To eliminate the drawbacks of the serial test method, a parallel test method can be used. The basic idea is to generate a test thread for each test item and, as shown in FIG. 1B, all the test items are tested together.
The problem of the parallel test method, however, is that different test items may interfere with one another. For example, it is impossible to perform the sequential seek test and the random seek test of the hard disk drive (HDD) together.
It is thus highly desirable to provide a test method that does not only have the high-efficiency, high-quality advantages of the parallel test method, but can also avoid conflictions in test items.